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Weight... Weight and more pressure pinned me against something hard and wet. Something cold that bit into my shoulder and hip. Then, something soft whisked under my nose and I heard a faint cry.
I opened my eyes. "You again?" The cat nuzzled my cheek, then scampered off, leaving me wedged beneath the bike in the street.
After squirming free of its chassis, I sat up, stretched my sore back, and rubbed my arms, which were stippled with pebbles and asphalt. Every muscle in my body felt board-stiff. How long had I been like this?
With my back and legs protesting every move, I staggered upright. The fire was still burning brightly outside the barn, but whispers had arisen in the leaves, and the air smelled sweet, a sure sign of rain. I righted the bike, and with feet that felt like they'd been encased in stone blocks, headed for cover.
After a little rummaging around, I found a charger behind one of the footlockers in the barn. While the TerraCycle got its much-needed infusion of go-go juice, I detached the GPS unit from the larger bike and decided to give it a test run. I turned it on and asked for a heading.
A robotic voice answered, "Your location is here."
Like the tablet, it was programmed with the same color-coded routes and markers. A white dot (me) pulsed at a point along the red route, while a slew of blue triangular markers seemed to be congregating around the outskirts of Mount Hakuna. Soldiers, no doubt, although their numbers were nothing compared to those that clustered around New Edo Holodome. Luckily, my immediate vicinity happened to be soldier-free.
"Show me the way to Sawagi," I said.
Nestled atop the ruins of a buried city, at first glance, Sawagi looked like any other shantytown. But concealed in those makeshift shelters on its topside were entrances to its underside, a warren of still-inhabitable buildings and passages leading to nameless streets that stretched for miles. No outsiders knew Sawagi's actual boundaries or even its real name. Earthquakes and time had swallowed its identity. Its residents preferred to keep it that way, too, which made it an ideal haven for Shokohin, traders, smugglers—anyone who wanted to disappear.
"Sawagi is here."
A red line appeared on the screen. Snaking away from my white dot, the route intersected with too many soldier-blue clumps.
I tried again, "Show me a route to Sawagi without soldiers."
The wiggly line disappeared, only to reappear in the same formation.
Well, it was worth a shot. With any luck, maybe some of them would move camp by morning. I fitted the unit to the TerraCycle's crossbar.
Bypassing Sawagi was not an option, since it was a frequent stop for some freebooter friends of mine: the Shinu. One of them, Tetsuo, fond of ghost stories and folktales, had told me about the Madman of Motosu. If Yomichi really did live in Aokigahara, Tetsuo would know.
To find him though, first, I'd have to find the Shinu. Their current location, much like entry to the Sawagi undercity, wouldn't come cheap.
I emptied my pack on the floor, rearranging its contents to hold the tablet and a couple of small handguns from one of the footlockers. Once those fit, I tackled a stack of coolers that sat in the shadows near the stairs. All bore stamps declaring them for 'Military Use Only.' If an army traveled on its stomach, these soldiers had come prepared for a feast. Guess slaughtering so many innocent people whipped up quite an appetite.
I yanked the topmost one down and tore off the lid. It contained a tray filled with small bottles of sterilized water, along with unmarked phials of a white powdery substance. Beneath the tray, I found an assortment of syringes. If that powder was what I suspected, it looked like this contingent had been marching on more than just its tummy. At Sawagi, there was bound to be a market for this kind of thing. I stuffed the phials in the pack's side pouch.
Liter-sized bags of a cloudy yellow fluid had been crammed into the next cooler. An 'Electrolytic Enhancement Solution,' according to their labels. Probably some kind of experimental supplement or antidote to counteract whatever drug was in those phials. I poked a hole in one of the bags with my knife. One whiff made me gag. It smelled like musty urine. Nope. Definitely not coming with me!
I tore into the last ones, hoping to find some non-poisonous foodstuffs. What I didn't eat, I could always barter. But the next two coolers contained even more of the electrolyte crap. I heaved them away in disgust. No food? What the hell?
The itadori was still in my anorak but the thought of chewing on one of those tough bitter stalks made me gag. Instead, I grabbed the poncho-hooch from the bike's underseat storage and prepared to bed down for the night. I'd just settled in when the spot over my replanted ID chip began to itch. When I rubbed it, I could feel a small lump beneath my skin. Although tempted to pass it off as a bug bite, the location seemed too much of a coincidence.
I cast my thoughts back to New Edo. Gods, what a fool I'd been! Mazawa had known my secret from the start and one of his minions could've tampered with the ID chip, turning it into the world's most perfect tracking device. Maybe that was the reason I still hadn't spotted any drones.
Too exhausted to think anymore, I cocooned myself in the tarp and drifted off to the soft susurrus of the night wind.